In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled
Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals
on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS.
This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in
Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on
March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response
to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale,
the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various
pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals
- part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included
staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing
a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida
cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban
refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian
jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up
a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.
Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt
plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
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Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba [includes cover memoranda], March 13, 1962, TOP SECRET, 15 pp. |
